Who doesn’t hate that word?  The very sight or sound of it makes us cringe.  It’s typically considered a necessary evil.  I wonder if the negativity surrounding the “D” word makes it that much harder for us to handle the enormous emotional roller coaster aligned with weight gain and weight loss?

As someone who has dieted on and off for literally my whole life I have pretty much always hated the word diet.  Even as a pudgy young child my mother would caution me that “the other kids can eat a second bowl of ice cream, but it would be better if you didn’t”.  Now don’t get all down on my Mom.  Her overweight mother succumbed to a massive coronary when I was only a year old.  So she has good reason to fear excessive weight on her loved ones.

The real challenge is that I have lived a lifetime of loving food – anything from gourmet to Twizzlers.  And when I’ve let my love of food lull me into a false sense of security I have invariably “porked up”.  Just like the beloved gene pool that came before me –  I have never exactly been a lightweight!

In general I am on a low fat sugar free “keep the calories to a minimum” food regimen.  And I’m able to keep myself within an “acceptable” weight range (thank god for HIPAA – or my doctor might think about chiming in here).  Some days I allow myself to “cheat”.  During the holidays and on vacation the scale can easily tip and the “cheat” days can out number the “healthy eating” days.  Ironically, when that happens my clothing all begins to shrink simultaneously.  By the time I come to grips with reality (not something I go out of my way to do) and face the fact that my clothing is not what has changed it’s time for a dose of harsh reality – better known as a diet.

At that point life really sucks.  You don’t feel good about yourself.  You don’t feel confident that you can make it better.  And you know that whatever else happens it’s gonna be really hard work and you’ll probably end up starving – at least for a while.  Add to that the fact that it’s likely to cost you a bundle and why would anyone do it?  Oh yeah, you want to look better and you need to be healthier.  Eyes on the prize!

I was at one such juncture years ago when it dawned on me that I was a horribly deprived individual.  There are places like Krispy Kreme so there must be people who frequent those places – and they’re not all gigantic!  Why couldn’t I be one of the fortunate ones who always fit into my size 10 pants and could swing by Krispy Kreme once or twice a week for a sugar fix.  Fate had dealt me a dirty blow.  And then the light dawned.  Fate had done me an enormous favor.  When I looked back on the family tree and thought of all the pudgies in my background I realized that fate had enabled me to find a way not to be obese.  In fact every day that I wasn’t obese I was kind of cheating fate out of one of her rightful pudgies.

So now that’s how I view it.  I’m not one of those sad and deprived people who can’t live how they want or eat how they want.  I’m an extremely fortunate person who was meant to be huge and has managed to cheat fate.  And that feels damn good.